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School health teams commonly address the needs of students with asthma, which requires specific knowledge and skills. To develop a skilled school health team, a competency-based framework for managing asthma in schools was developed. A modified Delphi with 31 panelists was completed. Consensus (≥80% agreement) was reached for all 148 items regarding the appropriateness as a minimum competency for asthma care in schools. The resultant Colorado Competency Framework for Asthma Care in Schools guided the development and pilot testing of a continuing education curriculum for school nurses. Pre- and postassessments demonstrated significant improvements in knowledge and self-confidence related to asthma care in schools and inhaler technique skills. This work is the first to use a consensus process to identify a framework of minimum competencies for providing asthma care in schools. This framework informed a continuing education curriculum that resulted in improved knowledge, confidence, and skills for school nurses.

The aim of the study was to examine school-related determinants of self-reported health among adolescents. Questionnaire survey data comprising 4,972 students, Grades 7 through 9, from 20 schools in northern Sweden were used. Also, complimentary data about each school were collected from the Swedish National Agency for Education. Using multilevel logistic regression analyses, results showed that most variation in self-reported health was explained by individual-level differences. Truancy, bullying, and poor relations with teachers significantly increased the odds ratio of reporting poor general health, for boys and for girls. Most variables at the school level, for example, school size and student-teacher ratio, did not render significant associations with students' self-reported health. In conclusion, this study indicates that health promotion at school, including school health services, may benefit from focusing primarily on individual-level determinants of health, that is, students' relations to peers and teachers, without ignoring that bullying and weak student-teacher relationships also may induce school-level interventions.

Aims: This study examines the relationship between norm compliance and self-reported health in adolescents, and how this differs between genders. Our specific aim was to investigate if extremely high norm compliance revealed any particular health patterns., Methods: This empirical study used a web-based survey from 2005, which was distributed to all students (n = 5,066) in years 7-9 of compulsory school within six municipalities in northern Sweden. The respondents answered questions about their general health as well as specific health problems such as headaches, stomach ache, sleeping difficulties and stress. Compliance was measured according to different norm-related behaviour, such as truancy, crime and use of tobacco, alcohol and narcotics., Results: The majority of respondents reported good health and norm-compliant behaviour. Girls reported more health problems than boys, a difference that increased with age. Those who were more norm compliant reported better health, fewer somatic complaints and less stress, which goes against our initial hypothesis that extremely high norm compliance and self-reported ill-health are related. There seemed to be a stronger relationship between self-reported health and norm compliance for girls than boys, in absolute terms., Conclusions: The results clearly show a relationship between norm compliance and health, and suggest inequalities between genders.

In this study, the authors aimed at a sociological approach to the individual's everyday life with psoriasis and to this end conducted qualitative interviews with 18 persons from a county in northern Sweden. The most difficult aspects of living with psoriasis were being marked by the visibility of psoriasis, especially in the younger ages, and the visibility of joint changes. Therefore, those with both rashes and joint changes felt marked and discredited in a twofold way. Commonly used coping strategies were routinization of both the treatment and the adjustment to the marking process, and acceptance, and these strategies developed with age. Most participants experienced a good quality of life but still could find nothing positive about psoriasis. The authors suggest efforts toward increased awareness among health care professionals of the marking process and future qualitative studies about experiences of psoriasis during adolescence.